Comments on: iPhone temptation and Nokia options

By: GD

GD — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:28:11 +0000

this is the same dilemma I have. I’ve played with the iphone and you can view japanese sites without any issue, but as far as typing? You certainly cant do it at this stage.

The iphone is quad-band, but according to ATTs site, the iphone won’t roam in japan because it doesn’t have the 3G 2100 band. I take this to mean that my mother’s bargain basement verizon phone beats the iphone because she used it while she was in japan without any issues.

I’m thinking about getting an iphone and I’m going to japan for a month this sept, so I’m in a conundrum (my current sprint contract ends in august). I’d like to have japanese support so this nokia is appealing.

Does anyone have more solid data on the roaming abilities of the iphone?

By: El Kentaro

El Kentaro — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:46:35 +0000

I have the Japanese Nokia E61 and love it. Okey so its not perfect, but atleast I don’t have to boot up my laptop everytime I need to check my corporate email(we use exchange so…)

the one thing I do miss is the camera, maybe not me, but my family sure does. I used to send pictures to them when I am on the road, but the E61 doesn’t have it. Writting Japanese emails is much easier on the E61 , call me cell-phone challenged but typing with one hand just isn’t in my genes…

The other thing which really bugs me is the lack of push email capability (i-mail, MMS) both are locked down by the carrier. (I use 3 carriers although mainly docomo and softbank). I know , “Why do you need i-mail, or mms if you can use regular email?” well I have my reasons. I would like to invoke my fifth amendment right to avoid self incrimination.nuff said.

so currently I have 2 phones, 1 regular docomo phone and another nokia sim lock free E61 with a softbank SIM card in it. (although I am considering to drop the contract with softbank)

By: ejovi nuwere

ejovi nuwere — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:00:28 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of PocketPC or WinCE, usuability has never been very good on those platforms. Symbian is decent if the company does a good job of customizing it. I don’t really need to edit documents, I just want to be able to check and send email without spending 30 minutes on each sentence, oh, and make phone calls.

By: 15 seconds? been a few hours...

15 seconds? been a few hours... — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:54:12 +0000

Hmmm… W-Zero looks like it won’t work in US. Still checking on that, though…
-Sven

By: Sven

Sven — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:34:58 +0000

I’d be careful about the E61 until you try it out a little for yourself, though. You probably already know, because you travel in Japan so much and I think you’ve mentioned that you have/or had a cell in Japan, but the OS is often a little questionable. What I mean is, for instance, it says “Document Viewer”, if this was a PocketPC or Palm type OS, you would find that most of the basic office documents can be viewed (or must be changed to a pocket format and then can be viewed) and even edited on the device. But, although you phone will say that is supports (read only, of course) PDF, word, excel, ppt, etc. When you actually put any of these things into it, you will find that it is actually extremely limited. My keitai is the best one that was available when I bought it (but it isn’t a PDA-phone, well, no more than a normal Japanese phone is…), but I have found the pdf, powerpoint, and word viewer to be entirely useless. I often put something on just in case I have some time waiting somewhere, and then I find that I am unable to read it when the time comes. Sometimes it just cuts out random words or sentences, sometimes entire pages are blank. My phone also has TV-out ability, so I thought that the powerpoint viewer would be a wonderful way to carry a powerpoint in my pocket and then present it easily anywhere. This, too proved useless because the majority of my slides would not display at all. Anyway, my phone, as advertised (also records video from TV-in, etc) makes one drool, but when you actually hold it in your hands, you learn that the product falls a little short. Don’t get me wrong, I love my phone, but I’d love to buy a new phone that does exactly what mine advertised that it does.
For your info, my phone is a Foma (Docomo, not Softbank) and used a variant of the Symbian OS. Nokia E61 also uses Symbian OS. The OS appears to have all features that you could ever desire, but it is a less well developed and tested OS than PocketPC, and is likely to be inferior to the new iphone OS. (Although, on the iphone, I’d wait until they find all of the horrible bugs that no one could stand in the first version and come out with a second version that has these fixed. Like they did with the ipod nano. ie scratched easily, etc.)
Japan does have 2 PocketPC type devices (though they don’t look as cool as the iphone. They are both called WZERO3, I believe, but there are 2 shapes, one has a larger screen, but I am partial to the particularly slim and stylish one). Good luck!

By: ejovi nuwere

ejovi nuwere — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:39:03 +0000

I should have known AG would have all the info.
I’m still leaning towards the Nokia phone. Its expensive too ($500), but I can use it anywhere in the world pretty much. I don’t think it has a camera though.

By: AG

AG — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:56:14 +0000

I’d stay away from iPhone, as it is really nothing more than yet another silo. Apple had a great opportunity to build platform that was open, which could also _push_ the wireless providers to innovate in that space. Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful piece of art, as is most stuff produced by the Jobs Cupertino factory. At the end of the day, the device is still using the dated EDGE network (read: 2G), it will likely be full of DRM strategies to prevent you from really owning your own content. You won’t immediately enjoy great 3rd party apps. The community will eventually reverse engineer and provide some stuff. There is no seamless handoff between WiFi and EDGE network. Oh yeah, it also costs $500 US too.

By: atsuko

atsuko — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 08:53:32 +0000

hi there.
I hear iphones are really popular… i dont even have ipod.. ahaha

nokia sounds good to me =)
if you can use that in Japan too, that will be so nice.
I work closely with cellphone market, but i never really paid attention for phones to use overseas (cuz i dont have a bussiness trip!!)… its worthit to get a phone you can use in both contries.

and forget iphone! im not a big fan of i-stuff either.. =P